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Bell Canada Repair (611) Woes

On the evening of Monday August 15, 2005, we discovered that we had no dialtone on our home phone. OK, no problem, we’ll call Bell with our cell phone and they will get it figured out. The phone had been working fine since we moved in (only about 3 weeks before) so we didn’t expect it to be anything to difficult for Bell to take care of.

Oh were we ever wrong.

Since it was after business hours, we waited until the next day to call and report it. Easy enough, they take the info and promise us the phone will be fixed by 6PM on the Wednesday. That sort of sucks because it means we won’t have phone service for another day. Again, not a huge deal though since we’d have it for after supper (which is when we usually get around to making any calls anyways.).

Oh, and I hate Emily by the way. That’s Bell’s voice prompt system. Too bad it’s not fast enough to keep up with you when you already know the words you need to say to get where you want. Stupid system. At least with number prompts you can key them in quickly. Although, if you confuse Emily enough she craps out and gives you numerical options. Never got around to just mashing the keypad but I think I will sometime I’m bored. How many ways can you crash Emily?

6PM Wednesday approaches and we still have no dialtone. Call Bell with the cell. They repeat it will be fixed by 6PM (it was about 5:45PM at that time) so we wait about an hour and call back because it’s not fixed. Apparently the technician assigned was unable to get to all of their appointments that day and we were being rescheduled for the next day. Oh, but we were again guaranteed the phone would be working by 6PM Thursday.

Oh, so the one thing I forgot to mention so far. During all of this, the phone line is still active, we just can’t get a dialtone. That means people calling us just get the line ringing forever. That really sucks. If anything, I would have rathered Bell disconnected the line. At least then people calling would get something indicating there was a problem.

Anyhoo, Thursday 6PM rolls by with no visit from Bell and no dialtone. By now I’ve been to my demarc point and verified the problem really is outside the house. Last thing I wanted was to get a stupid service charge from Bell for something that was in the house.

Again we call Bell. Again we are guaranteed it will be fixed by Friday at 6PM because they’ve now figured out that it’s a problem in the central office (CO) and the trouble ticket needs to be re-routed to the people who work in the CO. Guaranteed to be working by Friday at 6PM.

Yeah so Friday at 6PM rolls around. We call Bell. They claim by 10PM it would work. At 10:15PM I call Bell again and chat with Keith at Bell Repair. I’m rather pissed. I ask for a supervisor and (after Keith warned me the wait would be long) get to chat with supervisor Paula at about 10:45PM.

Oh supervisor Paula, how I wish I could track down your employee ID so I could nail your ass to the wall.

Supervisor Paula tells me she is going to take care of everything, that she’s sorry it’s taken so long. She informs me that she is going to generate a new trouble ticket and hand deliver it to the people who need to get it. She tells me my phone will be working by 1PM on Saturday and that she is going to leave a message for the supervisor by the name of Stacey that is working on Saturday. Stacey is supposedly going to call me back and if I don’t hear anything I’m to call Bell Repair back and ask them to forward me to her at extension 3432.

OK, so Paula talks the talk, too bad I didn’t realize she was just trying to get rid of me so she didn’t have to deal with me. I guess that has a lot to do with me being left on hold for 30 minutes waiting for her.

Anyways, I’m sure you’ve figured out by now that Stacey didn’t call me on Saturday and we didn’t have dialtone by 1PM. I’m not a happy camper.

Now, this is where it became “fun”. I’m already super pissed off with Bell (I had a wonderful chat with a Bell ExpressVu “Customer Service Agent” Saturday morning already but that’s another story on it’s own) and I’m even more pissed that we keep getting jerked around. I call Bell Repair again. This time I get some guy that proceeded to frustrate the hell out of me. Not only was he completely useless, I could hear him flipping pages – reading the script is all I can assume since his answers were all just useless. I asked him to forward me to Stacey at extension 3432. He said he couldn’t. Huh? Why not? Not allowed to. Huh? Paula said so. Doesn’t know a Paula and there’s no Stacey who works there.

Oh. Now I’m super pissed. Not only do I realize I’m getting jerked around, I’m getting laughed at too. I rip into the guy. I want a supervisor now. Do I get one? Nope. I keep getting nonsense responses and twisted replies. Screw this. I hangup and hit re-dial. Too bad I forgot to get the guy’s name and employee ID at the beginning of the call.

The woman I talk to next is by far the nicest person yet but she still doesn’t fix my phone. However, she is very apologetic for what has happened. I don’t know if she managed to get my phone fixed but it was fixed when she said it would be.

Anyways, the one thing she tells me after I ask for Stacey at extension 3432 is that there is more than one Bell Repair office that the calls get forwarded to. Ah-ha! There’s the kicker. Apparently I’ve been forwarded to the Toronto office for some reason. I still don’t know where Paula and Stacey work, not in Toronto though.

This agent tells me there is no record of anything on my ticket other than the appointment keeps getting missed. Apparently it kept getting updated as if I wasn’t there for the appointments. I never had to be there as it was always outside my house. She claims to add in all of the dates and times I’ve been told it was supposed to be fixed. Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. In the end she says the phone should be fixed by 6PM Monday but she didn’t guarantee it, she only said that was the time she was being told by the system. OK, fair enough. I can buy that response. At least it was honest.

Anyhoo, by mid afternoon on Monday the phone is working. 7 freaking days later. One whole week without phone and from what I was able to get from the last woman it sounded like they inserted a faulty line card when they upgraded my line to be able to handle DSL. Haven’t bothered to follow up on that yet.

Now, the next set of problems are going to begin. I get to deal with Bell Canada Billing next to try and get credit for lack of phone service, no internet access (yeah, I went with Bell for everything – stupid me eh?) and the one that I’m sure I’ll have fun with – trying to get credit for the extensive use of our Bell cell phones during the period with no home phone service.

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55 thoughts on “Bell Canada Repair (611) Woes”

I am a Toronto lawyer, our firm works in consumer protection and we are interested in commencing a class action against Bell on behalf of people who have experienced service interruptions on their residential lines resulting in increased cell phone bills (during the past 6 months). I read your story and if you are interested in getting involved, please contact me to discuss.

On strike? In August? Considering the collective agreement was ratified on July 21, 2005, I hope you weren’t still on strike. I was told about the strike. The comment went something like “Well, the tech should be getting this taken care of since they are no longer on strike.”.

we have encountered the same problem and are in the middle of it right now. a tech came to the house and said the problem is in the house so we had the wires traced and found that its from the street 7 days no phno going on 8 today unreal

I am a Bell tech and I am also frustrated and concerned with the way things are going at Bell. We have too many contacted people who really don’t give a crap.Call center people are always under threat of job loss so they are forced to lie sometimes to keep production up. The outside plant (cables etc) are in bad shape but they are trying to fix it. I would be wary of Rogers as I have had trouble with them and have finally ride myself of their nickle and diming. Younger employees seem to try to baffle brains with bullshit but most people are too smart for that. The trusting customer can be really in trouble with the bullshit baffle brains employee. Upper management seem to be trying to fix these problems but with the competition they are also doing cost cutting so money talks for them. I see lots of awful customer related bumbles at bell and find them personally distressing. Keep on their backs until you find someone who can really help and try to always get some kind on employee ID so you can report those who treat you unfairly.

I no longer call customer service. If I have a problem I write the vp of customer service.
He forwards my concerns/complaints to an executive secretary who looks at my issue and takes care of it immediately.
No more out of country call centers for me.
I also do this for other companies and the results have been excellent.
I hope this helps.

Hi Dean: I did the same and got a call from their executive offices in Toronto. Problem should be fixed today. Told him I was ready to send a letter to the Board of Directors of BCE. He told me he would have received that letter. Hopefully, it will be fixed today and I asked for a credit on my bill, Blackberry account and compensation for my time. My line has been down since June 12. We are the 29th today… Also sent a letter to a lawyer in Toronto that’s dealing with a class action suit.

We moved into our new place on May 31, 2007. Our place is part of a small in-fill development (about 15 homes) in an established neighbourhood (constructed in the 1960s) and about 300 yards from a Bell switching station.

It is now July 11, and we still have no phone service. Every time we call Bell, we get a different response. This is our first move in 15 years, so it’s pretty obvious that things have gone downhill in that time! The date just keeps slipping, and the most recent date for setting up service (our house is already “wired”, so it’s an outside job) is July 27, 2007. We have cell phones, but Bell’s “carrot and stick” approach and our concern about putting “all our eggs in one basket” has kept us from switching to Rogers Phone.

I won’t change the topic and talk about waiting for mail delivery from Canada Post (they’re “working on it”), or the 4 months it took to get a passport, nor the one hour waits (phoning from friend’s homes) to find out what was happening (the passport situation is understandable, given the changes in US entry requirements; just my bad luck that my passport expired 2 days before a 4-day trip by air to the US).

Anyway, I guess our expectations regarding service these days from Bell and every other organization are way out of line. Sigh…

I recently moved to a new apartment. Because I moved into the area of a different central office, I have to have a new phone number. I (mistakingly) assumed that when they assigned me a new number, they would put a recording on the old number, telling anyone who called it what the new number was. WRONG!!! When I called 310-BELL to querry this, they tell me that this is a paid for service that should have been offered to me when I informed them that I was moving….they didn’t. Anyway, I asked them to put it on for six months, and the CSR promised that it would be on by 5:00 Saturday (the day I called). As you can all guess, that did not happen. On Sunday, I’m told that he Business office is closed. I try tech support, and they say that they can’t help me. That’s for the business office.

So I call on Monday, tell them the whole story, and the CSR assures me that she has placed an URGENT flag on my work order, and that it will be up for Monday at 5:00pm. At 6:00pm I called my old number. That’s right!!! It is still telling me “The number you have called is not in service”. Today, Tuesday, I call again, and now I am being told that it will be done in 24-48 hours. If this time elapses and the fowarding message is still not on, I’m simply going to ask them to cancel it, since for what ever reason, they obviously cannot provide me with this requested service. But I’m willing to bet the farm that they will still try to bill me for it.

I used to work as a Central Office technician for Cable & Wireless Jamaica. When ever the outside plant technicians were fixing a faulty line outside, I would hear them on the phone with the customer, brazenly requesting a bribe before they fix the line. One fellow even said to a client, “Mek sure yu have some money ready for mi, cause money mek di mare run faster” (Cable & Wireless Jamaica, to their credit, has been aggressively cracking down on this practice of their technicians with immediate dismissal if caught). As bad as that is, at least once you “greased” the tech’s palm, the work GOT DONE!!! With Bell Canada, I don’t even know which technician I should I be bribing and which alley-way I should be meeting him in to give him is $50 to do the job he’s already getting paid to do.

The reason I haven’t gone to Roger Home Phone….and if I did, I would have been able to keep my old number….is because, I really do not want to have to give up my DSL for Rogers Internet service. I absolutely HATE when they tell me, “Thanks for choosing Bell”. The only reason I’m still with them is because the competition sucks just as badly if not worse than them.

I use to work for Bell about 40 years ago in putting the wireing on the orders. Pole number, street number, cable number, ring or tip. etc. When a customer had a problem they would call in, a slip would be made out, taken to repair and the work would be done. In the case of my sister’s number being changed— the operator saying please call and the new incorrect number being given—, I asked the person answering where she lived and it was two streets over from my sister. A mix up at the pole in the old days, or a mix-up in the equipment room in the old days. The repair slip would have been given to either THE inside worker or outside worker and it would have been done the next day. If the problem was inside it possibly would have been done the same day. What has happened to Bell.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO BELL. IN DAYS GONE BY WE TOOK PRIDE IN WHAT WE DID AND HOW WE DID IT. CUSTOMER COMPLAINTS WHERE TAKEN VERY SERIOUSLY.

I asked the lady who answered the phone if she would go over to the next street to my sister’s address and give her the message to call her sister as it was urgent family business. This she did and I was able to get my sister’s new phone number.
IT IS VERY POOR BUSINESS WHEN THE CUSTOMER HAS TO CORRECT THE SHODDY SERVICE AND IS THEN BE EXPECTED TO PAY FOR IT.
WHAT IS HAPPENING IN CANDAD. THIS IS NOT THE WAY WE WHERE????

Incidently I called 611 and determined after asking that I was talking to a answering service in India. Very polite and very unhelpful. In answer to my query as to how to get help on a Saterday–

Having the same problem – after reading the story I called bell back again at their canadian 1-800 number.

I wanted to make sure that I was speaking with the propper office for my area so I asked where I was calling…. The customer service representative hessitated…. apparently the call was patched to a help centre in INDIA. nice.

I have just spent 2 hours this evening complaining about by son’s telephone that is not working. He uses his land line for business. This is the second time in two weeks that the phone has not worked. He complained all day and had stayed in all day as they were to visit between 8:30 and 5. I said I would help.

I spoke to 4 representatives and a supervisor. The first woman, Rachel, said they were already at my son’s home (it was 1/4 to 5)—I called his cell phone and he went outside- not there. I called again immediately and Frank, my new help, said the repair men were just leaving their last job and heading to my son’s and that his phone would be repaired by 7 pm but my son would have to stay in and wait. Called my son- he couldn’t stay in, he had a meeting. I then called back and the third rep, heard my story and hung up. I called back again got a rep and immediatly asked for the supervisor. After a lengthy wait, Sam came on the line- gave me his name and number. He said no one could fix the phone tonight and but that someone would be there tomorrow before 12. It turned out that Rachel, Frank, hang up lady, and Sam are all in New Delhi. How do they know where the repair person is- obviously they don’t and they just are polite and say anything!!!!!

I then went to bell complaints on line live chat. I waited for an operator to respond. Thomas: “Hello and welcome to Bell Canada’s chat sevice. How may I provide you with EXCELLENT SERVICE TODAY?” So I wrote, “Thomas what country are you in?” Long pause….Thomas: “I am from India.” me: “How can you help me with service problems in my country when you aren’t even on my continent.” Thomas: after a long pause, “I can help you with that.”

NEED I SAY MORE…. I AM CALLING COGECO TOMORROW AND CHANGING OVER MY TELEPHONE service. MY SON IS ALSO.

Today is Friday January the 4, 2008. Since 3:PM there is no dial tone on my phone. I can’t get to call 611 because I don’t have a cell phone anymore. I have two phones in my house. A cordless upstair in my master bedroom and one with cord downstair on top of my kitchen counter. It says, “check phone cord” which I did over and over and nothing is wrong with the cord. I am fed up with Bell Canada. I have been with Bell for over 35 years, this is my home phone. I never changed. I have Bell Sympatico Internet, I also change to Bell Xpress Vu.

I don’t know what’s going on, but your service is stink and you hired people who don’t know what they are doing. Some of them are so rude. I received my Invoice and one of the pages are missing. Right now I am being riped off. My bill is not right. This is very fraustrating. Bell Canada you are not a monopoly anymore, you have a lot of competition. I am going to switch to Rogers. I regretted changing from Rogers Cable to Bell Xpress Vu in March of 2007. Big mistake.

@Javier: I don’t remember for sure (this post is almost two and a half years old now) but I believe I did get a pro-rated credit for the 7 days my home phone was out. I also didn’t get charged for my DSL until the day I finally got phone service restored. As for my cell phone, I managed to stay under my monthly minutes by pure luck. I didn’t get any credit for that.

Now that Teksavvy is a reseller of Bell home phone service, I decided to order it through them for a new townhouse I was moving into. I placed the order on May 12th and I still haven’t received a dial tone yet, as of June 6th. To be fair to Teksavvy, they have done their best to work with Bell to have the connection completed up to the demarcation point, but Bell has failed to complete the work.

The initial connection was supposed to occur on Friday, May 16th (4 business days after the order was placed). That didn’t happen, so Teksavvy began the process of getting Bell to complete the connection. Of course, each time Bell fails to complete a scheduled connection, Teksavvy has to call them to ask why and also to schedule another appointment, which will occur up to 5 business days later.

So, for the second connection appointment, a Bell technician managed to show up and do some work with a bell box that sits on the other side of our driveway. He said that another technician would have to be scheduled to complete the connection to the demarcation point. I called Teksavvy to get that step going, and another Bell technician was scheduled to visit up to 5 business days later. I waited at home all day for that technician and none appeared. According the information Teksavvy received from Bell, the technician reported that he did show up and no one was home and no one answered the phone. It was my cell phone number that was provided to Bell, and no calls were missed on that day and no message was left on my voice mail. So, Teksavvy scheduled another visit that would occur up to 5 business days later. This time, a bell technician did show up, but he was the wrong type of technician and couldn’t complete the connection to the demarcation point. I reported this to Teksavvy, so they called Bell to find out what was up.

Two days later, on June 4th, Teksavvy tells me that they’ll schedule another Bell technician visit that would occur up to 5 business days later. I decide to call Bell directly at this point to see if I can be more successful. I’m suspicious of the fact that Teksavvy may be having trouble because Bell has little motivation to perform this work. After a fair bit of discussion with a Bell customer rep, they convince me that it would be easier to move my phone number from the condo I was renting to my new townhouse. I explained that four days earlier, on Saturday, May 31st, I had filled out a move request on the Bell.ca website with the instructions to cancel my existing service on May 31st. Of course, the Bell rep stated that a different department handled web form requests, so they couldn’t comment on that. I further explained that I left the date for the start of the service at the new location empty, because I had no intention of starting the service. I also explained that I would have gladly filled out a form to terminate my service, but there isn’t such a form on the Bell.ca website. The Bell rep asked me for the confirmation number of this request, so I explained that after submitting the move form, I received an e-mail notifying me that I would be contacted within 2 business days to complete the process of moving, but no confirmation number was provided in that e-mail.

Given all of that, the Bell rep said it would be best to start with a fresh move request. I provided all of the necessary information for the move and after being put on hold for 10-15 minutes, the Bell rep said that they had managed to schedule a Bell technician visit for first thing the next morning, June 5th. I asked the rep how long it would take for the phone service to kick in after the technician leaves, and they assured me that I would have a dial tone once the technician completed the connection at the demarcation point. So, I called back Techsavvy to have them cancel my order for phone service.

The next day, no technician had arrived by 10:10 am, so I called Bell. After a fair bit of discussion, the Bell rep told me that the technician was scheduled to visit between 8:00 am and noon, so I should call back at noon if no technician appears by then. By 1:00 pm, no technician had appeared, so I call Bell again. I was greeted with a very extravagant and long winded opening line that ended with “How can I provide outstanding service on behalf of Bell Canada today?” Ummmmmm, yeah.

Anyway, after a lengthy explanation, which included restating everything again, in addition to being put on hold a few times, the Bell rep concluded that he couldn’t find any move order. All he could find was information about the Teksavvy order and the various notes related to it. At that point, I requested to speak to a supervisor. After being on hold for about 10 minutes, the Bell rep returns to state that the supervisor couldn’t take my call because I need to take the matter up with the reseller, which is Teksavvy. I explain to the rep that I have already cancelled the Teksavvy order as of yesterday and I am now persuing the move of an existing phone service to my new house. Eager to assist, the Bell rep tries again to find the move order, which involves my restating of the same information and being put on hold again. I explain to the Bell rep that since he has my cell phone number, he should be able to investigate this matter on his own and then call me back with a solution. He says that he cannot do that. So, I ask the Bell rep to try connecting me to a supervisor again. After being on hold for more than 10 minutes, I simply hang up.

About an hour later, I try calling back. Since I am connected to a different Bell rep, I have to re-explain the situation again. After a couple minutes of explanation, I tell the Bell rep that I’d rather not go through all of this again. So, I insist on speaking to a supervisor. After about 3 minutes on hold, I finally speak to a supervisor.

After explaining the whole situation to the supervisor, I end up with a fresh move order. A bell technician is now scheduled to visit on Monday, June 9th by noon. Also, the supervisor agreed to waive the moving charge of $55. While speaking to the supervisor, I decided against asking all sorts of questions that would help explain why I don’t have a dial tone yet. I didn’t want to disrupt the connection that will hopefully occur on Monday.

As a general note, all of the Bell reps I spoke to were polite, friendly and eager to help. It’s too bad that they work for such a poorly run company.

Here are some of the questions I may ask once I finally do receive that dial tone:
Why can’t the technicians call me when they are going to be late or when they aren’t going to show up at all?
Why do I have to wait up to 5 more business days each time a Bell technician fails to show up or fails to complete the work? Those days can add up to a month pretty quickly.
Where did the move order that I made on-line go?
Where did the first move order go that I made on the phone with the Bell rep?
Is Teksavvy going to have trouble like this with all new installations?

i just finished with bell canada for service to both my phone line and internet service.
after a lightning storm…our phone line had high static…making things rather difficult for us to hear people at the other end..
while i placed several calls to bell…i finally got through to them after 4 attempts..2 of which they disconnected me..
trying to get help for a dual problem…but no one could help..i had to phone two different places one for res. phone and another for internet service..
where we were told that a technician would be visiting between 12-6pm on a wednesday..we have had problems since thursday before…
so we waited until 630pm wednesday and no one came…i called in to bell..after being told to hold…20mins……then another 10…i was told that the technician had left a message saying the problem was not with bell but in my equipment…..
after disconnecting our inside lines and connecting directly to the drop line from bell..we found out our problems where not inside the house but with bell line…
so back to the service centre..to find out the technician can not come until sunday..over a week now without proper service …not much to be able to do but wait..i then called for internet help only to be told that my modem is the problem..i send it out for checking and repair person says the modem is out do to some surge in power from a defective line…
saturday the technician came from bell and up the road pole he heads calling us to tell us the drop line needs to be changed and he is surprised we did not have more problems with our line..but little did he know about our modem and the poor phone reception we have had over the past 5 years…everytime there was some storm..the old drop line was so rotten that he left it for us to show to bell…
now i am trying to send a letter to bell and see if they will replace my computer modem…
wish us luck..we will need it..
sure is frustrating to have a BELL KKK

Bell Canada does a very good job of repairing problems, and technicians are very well trained, experienced and have the proper tools to do a great job, this being said 10 years ago when I worked for Bell I cared about my job, and the customer. When I started I didn’t do the typical “residential” work I did cable repair work to the physical lines, area issues, spares, etc., Bell hires staff today under BTS (Bell Technical Solutions) and still has some Bell Canada staff but starts new guys at under half what I started at 10 years ago, THEY SAVED MONEY by taking customer service to East India and hiring the cheapest swaheli speaking folk WHY would they stop hiring experienced candidates, for the most part if you get a tech that has been within or around Bell for 10 Years your getting quality work, less than 10, my best wishes, I’m with another telco now and customers come first, not coffee, not anything, customers and making sure they have service. If a smaller telco can do it, why cant big ol Bell?

I have also experienced EXTREME difficulties with Bell with regards to my home landline. The negative experience peeved me so, that I switched to Rogers with whom I am very satisfied with.

Its too bad that Bell has fallen to the dogs/cows. Perhaps the government should shut them down altogether. I mean, who ever would imagine that their help centre is in India. How does this help Canadians in Canada? And the heavy Indian accents, wow, it must be a new English dialect or something.

I will never support Bell again and I want the general public to do the same. Its about time that we smash this telecommunications monopoly giant once and for all.

BELL???……………Absolutly the worst corporation to deal with. I am an excavating contractor and in our industry it is very common that service wires get cut and damaged. One would assume that if a contractor is working infront of your house and damages your phone line that they could call Bell and have this problem fixed, right? …..Wrong?….Bell will not take repair requests from anyone accept the Home owner. Therefore if this happens at your house and you are at work until 5:00pm or later, The repair request will not get taken until after hours or even the next buisness day. Then after the 1 hour (if your lucky) phone call to India…..The 3 – 7 days wait begins. Ask me how i know this !!! i have now been on the phone for 45min talking to emily and 4 other indians. The last indian just told me that i had to call another phone nuber. ONTARIO ONE CALL! Oh buy the way the damaged line in question..WAS CUT ON TUESDAY OCT 21/08 (TODAY IS THE 24TH) and bell was allready out and did not fix it the first time.

As for “Fu” (way up above) you are not on strike now!

Another thing….I do not care if bell provided the absolute best service in the world, There are still canadian citicens that are out of work while they pay out our money to $4.00 p/hr Packies. SO FU TOO!!!

We live in the country and have problems on a very regular basis with water/moisture in the main trunk lines going to the distribution box 2 miles down the road. The bell repair guy came many many times and we even got to know some of them on a first name basis. What is happening in our case is the main lines leading to distribution boxes are old and have been contaminated with water. So – what the local support person does is switching us between 2 to five or times a year over to a different – what they call a pair of wires…. They have told my wife and me that the main lines are the problem, but bell Canada’s main business right now is Satellite TV and cell phones…. so, what is happening is the local repair person is more than willing to come out any time to switch the wires under ‘over time pay’…!!!! I even have the repair mans home phone number and he will schedule it personally to come buy and fix it under Bell Canada overtime pay..
He told me it is only makeshift and can never be properly repaired – as the line crew is not willing to pull in new lines to this area. On a personal note he told me…. This is great overtime pay…. and is on an ongoing basis…! I have to say I actually like the fellow that does the switching of the lines – because he is the only one that can restore my phone service for a little while…. even if it is rather strange that he looks forward all the time to overtime pay. He even opens the work order and the ticket….. It is rather sad to see that a service that is crucial for 911 calls – is allowed to deteriorate so badly..!
I have traveled in 3rd world countries that have far better and more reliable phone service….. It is sad and very dangerous in emergency conditions, specially for elderly people…., but the CRTC is not doing it’s job by staying on top of emergency services…..!!!

I just had an automated message service tell me there is nothing wrong with my phone line. I never spoke to a human. The automated voice told me a technician would be out today. Instead I got another automated voice telling me some automated technician checked thier automated trouble shooting device and determined there was nothing wrong with my phone lines. I hate Bell Canada. I remember that strike a few years back. My sister lives in Barrie and during the strike, a few of her neighbours witnessed a technician working on her neighbours house. The technician went over to my sisters house and cut her line at the demarc. It took two weeks to get her phone service back and it was never determined if the tech was caught or not. I think they were purposefully cutting demarcs so everybody would know how “valuable” they are. I did some detective work myself and found out the Executive Vice President of Bell Canada (Lawson Hunter) has a secretary named Louise. Her phone number at the time was 613-785-2181. I had to hound Louise in order to get my sisters phone up and running again. So I guess I’ll give Louise a call and see if she’s still working for the Executive Vice President.

Well I didn’t call Louise. Instead I called repair again and messed with the mind of the automaton. I kept silent until she finally got frustrated enough to connect me to a human. So “Sam” told me it was a line problem at their site and that it’s now fixed. I said I must have a lot of power (I must be the queen!!) because this same problem has been going on for a year and why wouldn’t it be fixed earlier. So I know I just got some BS from Sammy boy. But if I have the same problem again, I’ll call Louise and let her know Sam is a bold faced liar.

Ohhhhhhh…… I spoke waaaaayyyyyy too soon…….. I discovered I am not the queen afterall and I am getting the same runaround BS as everybody else. There should be a law that says large corporations are not allowed to lie to customers in order to just get rid of them. It has happened to me 3 times this weekend. They even had the gall to say the technition was here and nobody answered the door – they claimed that report was filed at 4:23. My husband was out pulling dandelions off the front lawn between 3:45 and 5:30. So I guess I’ll be calling Louise afterall……..

I too can not stand Bell. In fact I hate the company so bad that I took all options off my line. Back in 1996 I called Bell to ask them when they would be updating the lines as the flashing red light which alerts you to messages did not function up here. They promised that this would all be fixed by 1998. It is now mid 2009.

Pretty pathetic service….. The phone lines in the Pontypool area have been out of service many times over the years. My phone right now has been intermittent since Monday…….as we speak I have no land line. Hence this correspondence. I find Bell extremely rude!!!
Both my children although not young (20)’s were in Hospitals. My son is currently still in London. I have a pre-mature Granddaughter currently @ Saint Michaels in Toronto. Nothing is more frustrating than not being able to use the land line.

My neighbor who is not well….his children even resorted to calling hospitals to see if their father was admitted, as they could not contact him. THIS IS TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!!!!!!1

I think customers should consider a class action lawsuit against bell.

I also think Bell needs a huge wake-up……laying off people and hiring overseas……there is nothing more frustrating than talking to someone who understands very little English…

I hope these responses are sent to the head CEO of our lovely Bell Canada!!!!!!!

Okay, So some of you got it pretty good (bad) from Bell. Well I think this takes the cake. I currently live in an apartment (old farmhouse) that is connected to the church here that was built at a later date. The church and the apartment are suppossed to be on two different numbers. The church has 3 extensions. The pastors office, the little office in the back and the kitchen downstairs. You would think that there would be two lines entering the building through a common point and that would be sensible and relatively easy to keep sorted out. But NO. The kitchen has an entry point, the office back has and entry point and the pastors office possibly enters the same as the apartment (now). To confuse the situation totally, there is only one cable coming from the street that carries 3 lines (1 for the church, 1 for the apt and one spare). (The apartment used to come from the side pole but one of the technitions working on the church line cut it not knowing what is was for.) So that lead to the set-up now. So whenever someone new moves into the apartment and a disconnect/reconnect new number is put in something somewhere ALWAYS GETS MESSED UP. eg(kitchen and one office dissconnected, church calls coming here or vice versa, when the church is to be fixed then the apartment gets jinxed) Due to some road work this week we got terrible noise on both apt and church lines. Today they “fixed it”. Only the phone in the pastors office is working and everywhere else is dead. They again ran another “temp” cable through the trees for spring burial. Think we are in for another repeat of the spring. That took months to get sorted out. Cables running around the yard, in way of grass cutting, reroute, a new ticket number for burial and blah blah blah on. Any comments on reliability of satelite phones and that rogers magic stick for internet? (At least the prayer line to God is always open!!!)

i have had many years of ongoing problems with bell on my business line as well a residential. i have had no or very little help but more than1000 promises that my line will be repaired but it never happens or it seems only for a day or so. now along with noise on the both lines im getting charged for and internet service i have never singed up for. lately every time i have call to get repair or to find out about additional charges to my account i get the reply they are unable to access my account. this is an ongoing issue for more than 12 years. i receive calls from customer satisfaction asking how or if i am satisfied with the service. i explain that the problem is ongoing but nothing ever gets done.

My problem is a variation of the above. I have no dial tone. Same problem occurs almost every time there is moisture in the air, which causes a disconnect between Bell’s outside line and my inside line. I have no cell phone, so I cannot call Bell. However, I do have Bell high speed internet, so I tried to reach Bell via internet. Wouldn’t you know it! Their webpage for complaints isn’t working either. It simply will not accept my message. So I am left here without direct communication with Bell. The best I can do now is to a) email friends who might be home this holiday Monday to ask them to call Bell on my behalf; or b) run to a neighbour’s phone to call Bell. If Bell does not fix this connection problem, which the technicians always admit is Bell’s problem, not mine, I may miss an important interview with the editor of a national magazine on the subject of my new biography of Peter Gzowski. Sincerely, Rae Fleming

My 72 year old mother just experienced the same no dial tone issue. Ma Bell isn’t helping my ma. Her email (through another provider) was greeted with a stock “We’ll get to you in 3 business days” answer. It’s this crappy service that had me leave 3 years ago after being a customer for 20 years. I’ll be counselling her to do the same. I went to Rogers. Vote with your feet people. I haven’t had an outage in 3 years. There is no “free service for six months” program that could ever entice me back.

If Bell is monitoring the blog – and they should be – I can offer a great leadership development program for the executives that are causing such incredibly lousy customer service.

3 days no phones, hung-up on by bell operator when trying to get through on my cell. Promised next day service…waited from 8 a.m. until 4:30 no one shows. Called repair back and they closed early! Wait another day, and still waiting for these idiots to show up

CRTC is to blame, they need to really open up the competition so Bell gets the message!

On Sunday I had no dial tone on my Bell Home phone, I turned on my computer and the internet worked, I went to the BELL.ca site and followed the Troubleshooting for my phone, after disconnecting ALL phones from their jacks I located the NID, my house was built in 1985, so NO test jack was available, I then went back to the Bell.ca support page and tried to contact Bell through LIVE Chat, it was not available, I sent an email and was informed I would be contacted in 2-3 days, I then called *611 on my cell phone spoke to Bell about my situation and was informed that a Service Tech would be by my house at the earliest the next day between 8am-12pm, 20 minutes later my phone rang and it was Bell informing me everything should be okay, and to follow the same steps if it were to happen again in the future. I was so happy that the service had come back so quickly, I have enjoyed Bells service for over 35 years and I have NEVER had an issue till yesterday, Each person I had talked to along the way was pleasant and professional, Thank you Bell for your understanding and quick response in this matter. I will continue to use Bell as I feel it is the most reliable phone service out there!

These comments are all too amusing and familiar, as I sit at home waiting for Ma Bell to come and fix my land line. This time, lightening took it out, but over the years have had ongoing problems with degraded lines in the Rockwood area. (Static, callers getting weird signals, phone only ringing once and disconnecting etc.) But best of all, I live 2 concessions away from the Bell tower in Brookville and have NO cell/internet service- none of my neighbours do. For years I was on painful Bell dial- up,which ultimately screwed up my computer. So finally looked around for high speed options. A neighbour a few roads over was able to get Bell reception, so thought I would give it a try. They advertise 2 weeks free trial (stick) LOL. Went to Bell store in Milton to get stick, but you need to have internet access to download program before stick will work on my Mac- and they won’t let you do this at the store.( Which means if you were to purchase this stick, take it somewhere remote, like a cottage, and try to use it you would be S.O.L.-not too user friendly) So after going to a friends house to download program no internet! Phone Bell who tells me to try downloading program again. I do, all the appropriate lights are flashing, but still no luck. So…. not being very techy, I drive to the Mac store for the techs to check out, who tell me the problem is with the stick which is not interfacing with the (brand new MacBook Pro) computer correctly (and ,hint, hint- there is a Rogers store just down the road.) So I return the stick to the Bell store within the 2 weeks and go to Rogers. Get the Rocket hub on free trial, instant set-up, works like a charm and cheaper than Bell. Then I get the Bell bill for $140 plus dollars. Not exactly a FREE TRIAL- however after personally confronting them at the store and many phone calls most of the charges were cancelled. I am really ashamed to admit I am a Bell Shareholder. Their reputation for overcharging and bad service is well deserved.
In the meantime, I wait patiently for the Bell Repair man- waiting for Godot?

i have no dialtone on my phone and i am totally without phoneservice. i have a heart condition and i am insuline de pendent diabettic, i am also using a cane to walk so it is difficult to walk to a pay phone. i want to order a pizza for my dinner and o cannot answer my phone because it does not wring and i cannot open my front dooe to my apartment building to let the delivery guy in. please help me before i starve to death. thank you

Our phone line went down on monday august 22nd. Every day, Bell has told us that there is a cable broken, but it will be fixed at 5 (FOR SURE). Then when we call at 5, it will be fixed at 9 (FOR SURE).

Compounding the issue, our bell hi-speed is on this same line. After 3-4 days, it became apparent they have no clue what is going on, so we asked to Rush our inet to a different phone line we have here in the office.

We were told it would be done (FOR SURE) by 11am friday. Of course, this doesn’t happen…but we are told it was cancelled but the order is still open. Sorry if this doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t make sense for us either!

have been fighting with bell about fixing our home phone for the last 2 years they say the problem is fixed then the next rainy day the same problems appear.dealing with overseas sucks and the only way i get anywhere is to not pay them until collections calls looking for payment and then they will credit me .so far this year i have recieved 4 months in credits but do not have a reliable home phone .i live in the country so they (bell) does not think that it is important enough to fix the problem.have sent a petition to the crtc but did not help.very frusterated but what to do.cannot spend all my time dealing with this ,would get rid bell but have 3 small kids and need to have 911 service of some kind.in this day and age to have this service is unacceptable.any suggestions would be helpful.also the problem is affecting more than i household in the area.

WE are seniors living in rural Ottawa. WE need a phone!!!Haven’t had any service for over a month and had static on line for a month before that. This springtime problem has been happening for over 6 years.Have had several servicemen here and our lines are good and have had a private in house inspection, all good.. Servicemen have told us it is now working but they never use the phone. We do have a dialtone but then the line goes dead about 5 minutes after they leave. WE need a full credit for the past 2 months and better service GUARANTEED from here on… Dwayne Acres

Good news Our telephone is working like new!!! Thanks Bell for this repair job. We now have a phone that keeps working after a heavy rain storm and Thank you very much for the refund to our monthly bill. We were without service for several months and our account was credited for the same .Again thank you Dwayne C. Acres..

I HAVE 6 LINES FEEDS OUR OFFICE THAT ALWAYS HAVE PROBLEMS AFTER IT RAINS, THE BELL TECH IS ALSO VERY GOOD, BUT EXPLAINS THERE IS NOTHING HE CAN DO. THEY WONT RUN NEW LINES AND THERE ARE NO SPARE LINES TO SWITCH TO. FRUSTRATING ! ! ! IT HAS BEEN 13 YEARS FIGHTING – ACROSS THE ROAD IS NEW CABLE FEEDING ANOTHER AREA THAT THEY WON’T PULL OVER TO US – TOO EXPENSIVE –